Improve Firefox » Configuration

Get new Firefox!

Adam Zamozniewicz — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:53:29 +0000

We’re almost there! First of all – check why you shoud upgrade Firefox as soon as possible. When you are already convinced, continue reading.

When can I get Firefox 3?

Download Day has already started. In order to get the new Firefox, you just have to wait for 10:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time (PDT). This is when it’s going to be available for download for all of us.
It’s 10:00 AM for the west coast, 11:00 AM for the mountain zone and 1:00 PM in the eastern time.

Where do I take it from?

Check for the download at http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/….
For the news, go to http://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases/Firefox_3.0.

Old extensions

Be aware, that when you update Firefox, some of your extensions may stop working. There is, however, a way to use them even if they are not updated yet.

When you start Firefox after update, you’ll get a list of the extensions, which are no longer compatible with your browser. Write them down and choose one of three solutions to make them work.

1) about:config extensions.checkCompatibility fix

You can make Firefox load extensions without checking if they are compatible. Even though it is the easiest way, it is a risky one.

Something may go wrong. First of all, the add-ons may not start or behave as they are not supposed to. But you can also cause Firefox not to start or even break your computer. If you are aware of it and still want to use it, follow the steps below:
(i) Type “about:config” in the location bar
(ii) Select “I’ll be careful, I promise” to skip the warning message
(iii) Right click anywhere in the window and select New > Boolean
(iv) Enter extensions.checkCompatibility as the preference name, set the value to false
(v) Make another new boolean extensions.checkUpdateSecurity and set the value to false
(vi) Restart Firefox

2) Nightly Tester Tools extension

Download the extension.
Right-click on an incompatible extension and chose “Make compatible” from the menu.
Obviously, it is not going to work for all the extensions. Unfortunately, just like the other two solutions.

3) Change the code of the extensions

Firefox extensions, although they are .xpi files, are in fact zip archives. You can download add-on (right-click on the link to it and choose Save), change its extension to .zip, unzip the file and change what it includes.
In the unzipped folder find install.rdf file, open it in a text editor (like Notepad) and change the maxVersion.
Change the appropriate line to 3.0.*
Save the file, create a zip archive from the folder and change the extension of the file from .zip to .xpi. Double click it and install the add on.

Actually, you can also change the maxVersion attribute of the add-ons, which you have already installed. You just have to find the appropriate folder with the extension in your profile folder.

For more, go to textgoeshere.org.uk.

History of Firefox

You may be also interested in what have been changing in Firefox through the years. If so, go to The History of Firefox 1.0 to 3.0 in Screenshots.

Protect your privacy

Adam Zamozniewicz — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:36:54 +0000

This is not going to be a strictly Firefox related entry. I’ll try to suggest some solutions to privacy threats connected with surfing the web. There is not such thing as being anonymous in the Internet, but you may easily make it much harder to track your activity.

Temporary e-mail address

When a website requires you to give your mail in order to register, you can usually expect some spam messages later on. Using a temporary mail is a good solution. You can create a virtual mail account, which forwards mails to your real address only until you remove it. There are plenty of websites offering it, like guerrillamail.com, 10minutemail.com or spambog.com.
I’ll just focus on two with support for Firefox.

Tempomail

Right click and choose tempomail from the context menu.

Enter your real address in the pop-up and in the next step you’ll see the temporary address automatically put in the form.

Perfectly simple and useful.

Gish it!

Pretty similar to Tempomail. Register at the extension’s homepage and install the add-on. Now, when you need to register, just click the Gish it! button in the right-click menu.
In the pop-up window that appears you get an automatically created virtual e-mail account.

Copy the temporary address, paste it to the registration form and you’re done.

Control cookies

Cookies can be used for tracking your Internet behavior. Therefore, you may want to be able to manually allow websites to install them on you computer.
CS Lite will allow you to easily control cookie permissions. It can be accessed from the statusbar, a toolbar button, or the context menu.

Just click on the icon to allow, block, or temporarily allow the site to set cookies. You can also view, clear or edit the cookies and exceptions by right clicking on the cs lite icon.

For safer browsing you may choose to deny cookies globally and then enable them on a per site basis. You can also download a blocklist that contains a list of untrusted hosts that you may choose to import into FF and block.

The ultimate anti-tracking solution. Tor: anonymity online.

Tor project homepage
Tor works independently from Firefox, but I decided to put it here as it may be a very useful application for those of you, who need absolutely safe Internet websurfing.
Tor is a software project that helps you defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location. Tor works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol.

FoxyProxy

Your IP address is recorded every time you visit a website. Sites like Google tie your searches with your IP address. Every search you perform may be used for gaining some knowledge about you – your hobbies, medical remedies and so on.
FoxyProxy is a Firefox extension which automatically switches an internet connection across one or more proxy servers based on URL patterns. Put simply, FoxyProxy automates the manual process of editing Firefox’s Connection Settings dialog. Proxy server switching occurs based on the loading URL and the switching rules you define.
For even more safety, this extension can also be used with Tor, the project described before.

Don’t send the referring site information

When you click a link, the website you visit can check where you’re coming from. This may be used for example for analysis. If you want to disable sending information on the referrer, RefControl is for you. You can enable referrers on a per site basis.

Other privacy-related apps and add-ons

NoScript (download) – this extension blocks scripting languages globally, protecting you from attacks like XSS, XSRF or CSRF. It can be configured to allow scripts to run on a per domain basis.

LocalRodeo (download) – JavaScript can make your browser connect to a site with a different IP address than originally set. If you don’t use NoScript or want to check even the pages you excluded from NoScript protection, you may find it useful.

SafeCache (download) – segments browser cache, which an be used for tracking your activity.

SafeHistory (download) – restricts the marking of visited links on the basis of the originating document, defending against web privacy attacks that remote sites can use to determine your browser history at other sites.

Even more stuff

8 Firefox extensions towards safer browsing
Porn addict’s toolbox: 100 Tools and Resources to Keep Your Privacy and Security

Effective use of Quick Searches

Adam Zamozniewicz — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:31:54 +0000

Smart keywords are unbelievably simple but effective way of improving your web experience. With a minimal effort you can speed up your daily web surfing or turn Firefox into a network command line.

If you do not know what smart keywords are – read the general description of quick searches first.
Otherwise, look at some examples of how they can be effectively used. Generally speaking, the more often you search the same websites, the more time you’re going to earn thanks to setting up the quick searches.
I’ll go through some most popular keywords, but first – let’s make some more sophisticated use of them.

Replace the command line with Firefox

If you use the basic operating system network commands – these searches are for you (via Lifehacker):

ping example.comwhois example.comlookup (IP address) OR (example.com)traceroute example.comemail admin@example.com (for Gmail users)

You can add bookmarks, which will allow you to execute these commands directly through the location bar.
You need to add bookmarks for these links and enter appropriate keywords for all of them.
Important: you can enter the bookmarks manually (changing the keywords if you like) but you can just download and import a ready for use file instead (keep on reading for a brief how-to.)

ping: http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=ping&host=%s whois: http://www.whois.net/whois_new.cgi?d=%s&tld=comlookup: http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=lookup&host=%s traceroute: http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=trace&host=%s email( through gmail): https://mail.google.com/mail?view=cm&ui=1&tf=0&to=%s

Download bookmarks instead of adding them manually

In order not to waste time adding th bookmarks manually, use the prepared file.

Right click and download the file with bookmarks, save it to your hard disk.
Go to Bookmarks » Organise Bookmarks... and then choose File » Import... » From File
Browse and open the previously saved file.

More on profiles: run multiple profiles simultaneously, install Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 on one machine

Adam Zamozniewicz — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 21:19:08 +0000

I have already described how to create and manage multiple profiles in Firefox. If you haven’t already read it, it may be a useful introduction.
If you have a few Firefox profiles created you will probably find the possibility of running them simultanously really useul. What is more, it enables you installing and using various version of Firefox on one machine – you can easily test and compare Firefox 3 beta to older versions.

Running multiple profiles simultaneously

Obviously, first you need to create at least two profiles. If you don’t know how to do it, I suggest reading profiles guide.
You can normally run Firefox, choosing the profile you need. When you need to run another profile as well, simply run the
/path/to/firefox -P "another profile name" -no-remote
command, where another profile name is the name of the second profile you want to run. Passing the -no-remote switch is what makes it work – normally Firefox insists on running a single copy of program and a single profile at any time.

Windows users can run the command from the command line (Start » Run or Windows + r)

Typing firefox.exe instead of path to firefox should work:
firefox.exe -P "another profile name" -no-remote

I suppose that if you use Linux, you know how to run a command from the terminal.

Run Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 beta on one machine

Yeah, wouldn’t that be great to see what’s new? You can easily compare the new version with you Firefox by opening them at once.

Download Firefox 3 beta

Install Firefox 3 (carefully!):
you have to install the beta version of Firefox 3 into a new directory (for safety choose Custom during installation and make sure you do not overwrite the old Firefox folder).

WARNING: From now on always run profiles with a command including the full path to Firefox – running
firefox.exe -P "main_profile" would update you main profile to Firefox 3 beta and you probably do not want it!

Run Firefox 2 and create a new profile running the command:
/path/to/firefox2 -profilemanager -no-remote

It will be necessary for testing, I called it Firefox 3 beta. Close the Profile Manager window and run the command:
/path/to/firefox3 -P "new profile name" -no-remote
Of course, you need to substitute Firefox 3 beta with the name you gave to your new profile. For me, the path to Firefox 3 under Windows is
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 2\firefox.exe
and I called the new profile Firefox 3 beta so I run Firefox 3 with Windows + r and
"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 2\firefox.exe" -P "Firefox 3 beta" -no-remote
command.

You’re done – you should have Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 running simultaneously.

Firefox configuration files

Adam Zamozniewicz — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:30:13 +0000

For some changes to be made, you need to edit configuration files manually in spite of using Firefox GUI.

There are three files you should know about:

userChrome.css
used to change the appearance of the browser

userContent.css
used to change the appearance of web pages

user.js
used to change various preferences

All these files are plain text files you need to create in your profile folder.
They can be edited using a standard text editor, such as Notepad on Windows and gedit on Linux.

Locate your profile folder

Profile folder is where Firefox saves all your settings on your hard drive.

Windows Vista/XP/2000

the path is usually %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\ where xxxxxxxx is a random string of 8 characters. Just browse to C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\ Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ on Windows XP/2000 or C:\users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ on Windows Vista, and the rest should be obvious.

Windows 95/98/Me

the path is usually C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\

Linux

the path is usually ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.default/

Mac OS X

the path is usually ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default/

%AppData% is a shorthand for the Application Data path on Windows 2000/XP/Vista. To use it, click Start > Run… (use the search box on Vista), enter %AppData% and press Enter. You will be taken to the “real” folder, which is normally C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data on Windows XP/2000 and C:\users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming on Windows Vista.

Firefox is capable of handling more than one user and thus, more than one profile. The path examples above refers to the default profile that is automatically created when you start Firefox for the first time. You can manage any number of profiles by using the Profile Manager.

Make use of Configuration files

userChrome.css

This file sets the display rules for various elements in the Firefox user interface and is located in the sub-folder called chrome in your profile folder. This file does not exist by default, so you need to create it before you can start adding your preferences. There’s actually an example file that exists by default, called userChrome-example.css. Basically, you can just rename that file by removing the -example part.

userContent.css

This file sets the display rules for web content and is located in the sub-folder called chrome in your profile folder. As with userChrome.css, this file does not exist by default, so you need to create it before you can start adding your preferences. As with userChrome.css, there is an example file that exists by default, called userContent-example.css. Basically, you can just rename that file by removing the -example part.

user.js

This is the main preferences file for Firefox and is located in you profile folder. The file does not exist by default, so you need to create it before you can start adding your preferences. In almost all cases, edits made using the user.js can be done via about:config, which is the recommended method.

I used Firefox Help. Content available under a Creative Commons license.